This introduction will touch on some of
what makes exile from Tibet more complex than is often perceived: the history
of Tibet, and its role within the intellectual and nationalist struggle
over Tibet's identity; the place within this history of the areas called
Amdo and Kham by Tibetans and generally referred to as "eastern Tibet"
(It is the area of the Tibetan plateau that has been home to most Tibetans
for centuries, but that lies outside the borders of the modern Tibet Autonomous
Region); the new cultural milieu of the dissent that often precipitates
exile; and the dissonance that develops when the images and expectations
of dissidents encounter the reality of exile in India.

There are exiles, of course, whose situation
and history might well fit the plain description of the refugee in search
of religious liberty. But for many, if not most, flight across Tibet's
borders into Nepal and India is a much more complicated experience, and
the images and accounts of exile contained in this volume reflect this
fact. Religious feeling and sentiment is present; this is undeniable. But
there is much more here that can bring to light a little bit of the complexity
of life in Tibet that often goes unremarked in much of what is written
about it. In essence, the issue of exile from Tibet cannot be characterized
solely in terms of religious liberty, nor by the formula of "cultural preservation"
that has gained currency in recent years. Exile for many is undoubtedly
linked to nationalism, and this in turn is often expressed by Tibetans,
both within the Tibet Autonomous Region and in the areas of eastern Tibet,
who have benefited from real opportunities for education and intellectual
activity --Tibetans who are acting within a Tibetan cultural milieu and
with definite perceptions of their history as Tibetans.

Tibetan intellectual life, expressed in
a distinctly secular manner, cannot be ignored. Across the Tibetan plateau
a significant number of cultural and literary journals are published, some
in rather out-of-the-way places. Yet balanced against this is the fact
that educational and cultural opportunities still remain inaccessible to
large numbers of Tibetans. And even more sobering is the undeniable evidence
that when intellectual activity develops into serious dissent from Chinese
policy on Tibet, particularly as it concerns China's historical rights
to Tibet, the state does not hesitate to visit severe repression on dissidents.
Freedom of expression is not extended to those who can in any way be construed
as acting to "split" China. Imprisonment and torture are commonly used
against Tibetans who take active nationalist positions, whether in secular
or religious settings. This aspect of intellectual life in Tibet also cannot
be ignored.

• • • •

The historical argument largely underlies
Tibetan nationalism, and nationalism in turn becomes the basis for proscribed
dissent in Tibet (and thus a major reason for exile). As a result, the
question of Tibet's history is a critical focus of strife between Tibetan
dissidents and the government that rules them. One can easily conclude
that China's insistence on its historical right to sovereignty over Tibet
has itself inspired a Tibetan impetus to contest the issue on that same
field. We can find many examples of Chinese rhetoric on the subject --
echoes of the common theme that Tibet, as everyone knows, has been an integral
part of China since the thirteenth century. Against this sweeping statement,
Tibetan dissidents have been arguing that history actually shows Tibet
to be an independent state. And in fact, viewed from beyond the confines
of the polemical struggle over Tibet's past, the briefest outline of Tibetan
history clearly shows that the considerable contact between Tibet and China
that has ensued for well over a millennium does not obscure the distinct
path Tibet has taken quite independently of China. Indeed, a strong case
can be made that prior to 1951, Tibet was at best one part of the empires
built by the Mongol and later Manchu emperors who conquered China, but
never an "integral" part of China itself.

The earliest substantive body of information
on Tibet dates from Tibet's imperial period, the era during which the country
became a serious international power. From the mid-seventh to the mid-ninth
centuries the Tibetan empire was one of the great powers of the Eurasian
landmass, extending beyond the Tibetan plateau into Inner Asia, controlling
the silk road centers north of Tibet in what is today Xinjiang for long
periods, and, along the Chinese border, absorbing into its domains large
swaths of what were once Chinese territories. During this period, too,
Buddhism developed into a substantive part of Tibetan society and Tibet's
spiritual, political, and cultural life.

The collapse of the Tibetan empire in the
mid-ninth century left the Tibetan plateau without a single unifying regime.
Power fragmented quickly, and there arose a number of Tibetan principalities
in different parts of the plateau. At times, some of these small states
played significant international roles in a shifting political and economic
climate that found China beset by strong foreign forces and states to its
north and conquest dynasties established in part on its territories. During
this period of fragmentation, the transmission of Buddhism from India to
Tibet continued, giving rise to broader developments of the faith as it
grew within Tibet. Clear sectarian divisions appeared, signs not of degeneration
and breakdown, but of vibrant, intense spiritual and intellectual engagement
with the tenets coming into the country. With the decline of Buddhism in
India, Tibetan Buddhism came to be seen as the preeminent esoteric vehicle
for empowerment. And with that came the beginnings of Tibetan Buddhism's
involvement with political power in the wider world beyond the plateau.

First in the realm of the Tanguts -- a
people whose state was to be so utterly destroyed by the Mongols in 1227
that the reconstruction of its history and language remains an ongoing
enterprise at the end of the millennium -- Tibetan lamas became the spiritual
instructors to the emperors at the end of the twelfth and the beginning
of the thirteenth centuries. With the appearance of the Mongols, lamas
began to fulfill a similar function at the courts of several Mongol Khans.
In an age of faith, this did not mean simply imparting aphoristic homilies
or bare articles of faith: it meant intimate, esoteric religious initiations
that would, within the Buddhist worldview, empower the ruler in the mundane
world to serve the dharma. As such, Tibetan Buddhism took on a distinct
role in the realms of political and religious power, well beyond Tibet's
borders. It is this phenomenon that lies behind Marco Polo's descriptions
of the marvels that Tibetan lamas were able to work at the court of Khubilai
Khan. They were held to be, quite simply, in possession of supramundane
powers.

The imperial fascination with Tibetan Buddhism
can be seen not only in the Mongol Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) but also in
the Chinese Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and the Manchu Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).
As a result, some have described the nature of Tibet's relationship with
China as uniquely religious, circumscribing it within the bounds of Buddhist
roles and characterizing it as a "priest-patron" relationship between a
lama and a ruler. However, this cannot obscure the fact that there were
indeed political links binding Tibet to the Mongol and Manchu rulers of
China resulting from the actual incorporation of Tibet into the Mongol
Empire in the thirteenth century and its absorption into the Qing realms
in the eighteenth.

Both Tibetan and Chinese pre-modern sources
testify to the reality of Tibet's subordination. But this domination leaves
much space for arguing, as many do, that being part of the Qing Empire
-- which collapsed only in 1911 and is thus a significant factor in perceptions
of Tibet's status in the twentieth century -- was in no way equivalent
to being an "integral part of China," the preferred formulation for Tibet's
status in modern Chinese polemics. Indeed, Mongolia, which was in many
ways far more closely bound to the Qing state and to Qing structures, emerged
from the Qing collapse as an independent state, which it remains today,
recognized as such by China.

After 1911, too, the Dalai Lama's government,
which had governed Tibet since the mid-seventeenth century, ruled independently
in the area under its jurisdiction. But the large areas in the eastern
portion of the Tibetan plateau, which the Qing had placed outside the purview
of the Tibetan government in the early eighteenth century, fell under the
sometimes anarchic rule of officials and warlords of the Republic of China
and were attached to or converted into Chinese provinces. This division
remains a particularly sore spot: Tibetans remain attached to "the eastern
areas" as part of Tibet, while China considers only the modern Tibet Autonomous
Region (essentially the area that had been ruled by the Dalai Lama's government
since the eighteenth century) to be Tibet.

In October 1950, following the victory
of Chinese Communist forces over the Nationalist government and the establishment
of the People's Republic of China (PRC) one year earlier, the Chinese army
crossed into Tibetan government-controlled territory. Routing the small
Tibetan forces there, they left the Tibetan government with little choice
but to accede to terms for the "peaceful liberation" of Tibet. The situation
that followed was very much affected by the cleavage between central Tibet,
under the Dalai Lama, and "eastern Tibet," under Chinese provincial rule.
The region ruled by the Dalai Lama was shielded by the terms of the "peaceful
liberation" agreement from the harsh methods of imposed class struggle
and land reform implemented in the east. Economic and social structures
viewed by cadres elsewhere in the PRC as feudal and backward remained largely
untouched in the Dalai Lama's realm. At the same time, the application
of policies derived from conditions in China proper (where land ownership
in the midst of tremendous population density was in great measure inherently
exploitative) to eastern Tibet (where the fact of sparse population strongly
mitigated the situation) had an effect wholly opposite to what the Chinese
government had hoped for. Rather than fostering class solidarity that would
link Tibetan peasants and herders to the Chinese peasantry, it fostered
allegiances between socially and geographically distinct Tibetan groups
that all faced harsh measures introduced from China. And this in turn focused
attention on the divide between Tibetan populations in the east and in
central Tibet.

During the 1950s a revolt against Chinese
policies developed in the east, inevitably spilling over into central Tibet
and erupting in Lhasa in 1959. Clearly, this uprising would not have occurred
or taken the direction it did had Tibetans from the eastern portions of
the plateau not considered themselves Tibetan. One might add that both
the Dalai Lama and the then Panchen Lama were drawn from the eastern regions
-- the Dalai Lama himself coming from an area and a family that were not
Tibetan-speaking.

In the wake of the Lhasa uprising, the
Dalai Lama's government was abolished and central Tibet ceased to enjoy
the protections it had previously had against many of the harsh policies
implemented in "eastern Tibet." The Dalai Lama and tens of thousands of
Tibetans went into exile in India, beginning a new phase in the confrontation
between Tibet and China. While armed Tibetan resistance was carried on
at a much reduced and sporadic level into the early 1970s, the polemical
struggle over Tibet's history took on greater emphasis in both the internationalization
of Tibet's case and in the shaping of fixed views. The Chinese government
studiously ignored the difference between historical influence and sovereignty,
as well as the implications of Tibet's place as an imperial possession
of Manchu and Mongol rulers, rather than as an "integral" part of China.
For their part, Tibetan exiles highlighted facts that supported their case
(e.g., the thirteenth Dalai Lama's proclamation of Tibetan independence
in 1913), while those that damaged it (e.g., the Tibetan government agreeing
to have its representatives in China in the 1930s and 1940s paid by the
Chinese government, essentially making them Chinese officials) were suppressed.
The received truths of Tibet's history shaped within the Tibetan exile
community have filtered back into Tibet. Positions on the historical status
of Tibet from inside Tibet generally make use of the same facts as those
voiced in exile.

• • • •

In this environment, the position of eastern
Tibet -- the regions placed outside the jurisdiction of the Dalai Lama's
government in the early eighteenth century, which are today outside the
boundaries of the Tibet Autonomous Region-has taken on particular significance,
so much so that the exile account of when China launched its initial attack
on Tibet has had to be altered to accommodate the incorporation of eastern
Tibet within Tibetan territory.

Of course, when those territories were
transferred from Guomindang provincial domination to rule by the PRC in
1949, the Tibetan government in Lhasa sounded no alarms and sent out no
appeals. That only occurred in October 1950, when the Chinese army crossed
into the area actually ruled by the Tibetan government. In fact, for years
afterwards the exile government dated the Chinese attack to 1950, only
later altering its position on when it happened. There was effectively
no Tibetan government rule over most of eastern Tibet for more than two
centuries before 1949. But Qing and Nationalist Chinese rule there was
often light, and for most of its duration the identity of the local populations
as "Tibetans" was not an issue. As noted above, much that has happened
in Tibet in the twentieth century would not have transpired had the people
in these regions not considered themselves Tibetan. In short, "eastern
Tibet," though standing outside the geographical limits of Tibetan government
control and the borders of the modern Tibet Autonomous Region, has played
a large and crucial role in much of Tibet's modern history. It cannot be
written out of that history.

These regions have had their own distinctive
identities and fates since the fall of the Tibetan empire. Indeed, from
the debris of that collapse, Tibetan states emerged in the northeast that
played a significant role in international affairs in the period before
the rise of the Mongols in the thirteenth century, sustaining vital trade
routes and supplying horses to trading partners in China. Though subsumed
into the Mongol Empire, eastern Tibet became by the fourteenth century
economically important as contact with India decreased with the demise
of Buddhism there. As a result, Tibet's eastern border, the Sino-Tibetan
frontier, took on greater economic and demographic significance. From around
the thirteenth century the burgeoning trade in Chinese tea for Tibetan
horses received renewed impetus. These developments most likely precipitated
a demographic change felt even today: up to the end of the twentieth century,
the majority of the Tibetan population has lived in the eastern portions
of the Tibetan plateau.

For centuries "eastern Tibet," with its
mix of effectively independent petty states, large and small monasteries,
towns, and nomad groups, has been quite distinct, socially, politically,
and linguistically, from central Tibet. At the same time it has had to
deal much more intimately with China along the traditional Sino-Tibetan
frontier. Over the centuries, local Tibetan rulers in various places along
that border have often found themselves dependent upon dynastic China,
with titles and duties that bound them to the Chinese state. At the same
time, the nature of these bonds has ultimately been quite feeble. This
was evident in the last years of the Qing Dynasty. During the 1950s, when
the PRC tried to assert its own norms of class struggle over the area,
eastern Tibet became ground zero for the outbreak of armed Tibetan resistance
to China.

Today eastern Tibet is firmly under Chinese
provincial administration. However, it is organized within Tibetan or semi-Tibetan
autonomous units, and remains very much a center of Tibetan cultural activity.
Particularly in the area known as Amdo, which has long been famous for
the many scholars and cultural figures who have sprung from its soil, serious
modern cultural and literary activity continues. To some this might seem
an odd statement, given the charges of "cultural genocide" in Tibet that
are common in exile circles and in the West. But the cultural activity
taking place all over the Tibetan plateau cannot be ignored, even though
it takes place against a background of harsh political repression directed
at expressions of separatist sentiment, and with a growing, deleterious
Chinese presence in many Tibetan areas.

• • • •

The severe repression of previous decades
eased considerably in the late 1970s, and by the early 1980s it was clear
that Chinese policies in Tibet had changed drastically -- as they had throughout
the PRC. Education, using Tibetan as the language of instruction, at least
in fields such as Tibetan language and literature, started to receive greater
emphasis than in previous years (though this has assuredly not been the
case in fields such as the modern sciences). Traditional scholars began
to teach again-some of them within the setting of higher education and
research institutions -- and monasteries that had been shut or destroyed
began to function again.

These developments are offset by the migration
of Chinese people into Tibetan areas. This influx has had -- and continues
to have -- a marginalizing effect on the role of the Tibetan language,
not to mention its effect on Tibetan economic aspirations and expectations
or its role in diluting the Tibetan character of such crucial hubs as Lhasa.
Nevertheless, Tibetan publications continue to circulate and grow in numbers.
This is in part due to the development of secular educational and cultural
institutions accessible to Tibetans within the PRC -- though it should
be noted that access to education for large numbers of Tibetans is still
limited, and most of the higher education opportunities for Tibetans involve
study outside the Tibetan areas of the PRC. Still, this is something unprecedented
in Tibet and has brought about the growth of what for Tibetans are new
literary forms. Modern novels and short stories are being written by a
new breed of Tibetan literati, born and raised under PRC rule, while essays
and research articles on a wide variety of subjects find homes in the increasing
number of new Tibetan-language journals and magazines.

This cultural activity demands to be noticed.
All too often people outside Tibet equate Tibetan culture largely with
clerical and monastic life, or with what might be termed folk culture.
In Tibet today this is no longer tenable. It is this petrified view, though,
that seems to lurk behind many of the calls for the preservation of Tibetan
culture as the goal of both the Dalai Lama's government and foreign diplomatic
moves. Tibetan culture, like any other, is dynamic. Calling for its "preservation"
automatically brings forth the need for it to be defined, which in turn
evokes a stuffed-and-mounted item fit for a museum. Tibetan culture does
not need to be frozen in time, but Tibetan cultural life needs to be protected
from measures that repress literary and artistic expression. In Tibet today
secular writers and artists, working with modern forms, are every bit a
part of the Tibetan cultural scene.

The contours of dissent in Tibet and its
repression by China are not shaped by calls for cultural preservation or
cultural autonomy, but by calls for Tibetan independence. In fact, within
certain limits the PRC does make efforts to accommodate Tibetan cultural
expression. But when perceptions of separatism (which Chinese documents
have termed "splittism") are brought into play, repression is harsh indeed.
Thus, while the government has allowed Tibetans leeway in various areas
of religious practice, there is no space for any move perceived to undermine
the state's authority. When the government puts monasteries under surveillance,
tries to limit the numbers of monks and nuns, and conducts "patriotic education"
campaigns, it is trying not so much to interfere in religious practice
or doctrinal issues, but to prevent any effort to undermine the state's
position as the ultimate controlling power over religion. A key aim of
the ongoing repression in Tibet is to purge Tibetan religious life of the
authority of the Dalai Lama, who continues to symbolize an alternate authority
to the Chinese government.

• • • •

For Tibetans involved in nationalist activities,
exile often does become the sole option. But here, too, popular notions
tend to diverge from the reality of exile. For many Tibetans who do reach
India, exile is not, in fact, a final decision. A number of those who leave
Tibet for non-political reasons do indeed go back to Tibet, even if they
left Tibet illegally. This is more common now than one might imagine, since
changes in India's regulations governing the entry of Tibetans into India
no longer guarantee residency for them. Not all who leave Tibet do so for
political reasons; some want simply to have an audience with the Dalai
Lama or to bring children into the exile Tibetan school system. Others
come for economic reasons, although they may well blame the Chinese government
for their economic circumstances. Some manage to travel to India several
times, even though the border crossing from Tibet must be done surreptitiously
and at great risk. Again, such facts underline the nuanced way in which
the situation in Tibet must be understood. It is not one of absolute despair
and oppression for all around. But for those believed to have crossed the
line into active and overt nationalism, whether centered around simple
allegiance to the Dalai Lama and the child recognized by him as the Panchen
Lama, or the assertion of Tibet's historical right to independence, the
weight of oppression can be heavy indeed. As is obvious from some of the
narratives in this volume, under these circumstances flight from Tibet
looms as the only viable alternative.

The risks taken by political exiles are
by nature greater than those taken by others. Capture, particularly when
one is already wanted, can lead to horrendous consequences. But once in
exile different anxieties can come to the fore. Some are particular to
the very state of exile and not unique to the Tibetan community, though
they have their own distinctive manifestations within it. It is not unusual
to find a sense of letdown setting in for exiles after some time. There
are a number of circumstances in which this happens: some find the educational
qualifications they acquired in Tibet insufficient to guarantee a reasonable
job in the crowded job market of the exile community; some don't have an
adequate knowledge of English; some find their intellectual capabilities
and accomplishments underappreciated or ignored in exile.

These sentiments are exacerbated by other
aspects of Tibetan life in exile. Those who struggled and suffered for
Tibetan independence inside Tibet are certainly aware of the irony of the
repudiation of independence as a goal by both the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan
government-in-exile. The corruption and nepotism at high levels in the
exile government have given many pause for reflection about the gap between
what they were trying to do in Tibet and the often unsavory aspects of
Tibetan exile politics.

• • • •

And so we return to the original point:
that the experience of exile among Tibetans is more complex than often
presented. Dissent in Tibet and the exile it causes grow out of an environment
that includes new cultural developments, specific views of Tibet's history,
and a definite sense of nationalism. The accounts and images compiled in
this volume illustrate this, but it is important to note that those profiled
in these accounts are not the only ones who have suffered. The arrests
and torture of Tibetan dissidents affect families and friends who also
must contend with the heavy hand of the government, and with the suspicion
and harassment such arrests generate. Moreover, the depredations experienced
by dissidents in Tibet resonate broadly among Tibetans within and beyond
the borders of the Tibet Autonomous Region. They serve to link those in
the present with widespread communal memories of brutalities suffered during
earlier years of PRC rule, and imbue the notion of nationalist dissent
in Tibet with a strongly felt sense of resistance to oppression and injustice.
And this, in turn, adds to a milieu in which nationalism, dissent, and
exile are generated anew.